If that's what actually going on, could we merge a taunt throughout the process, or is that a bad idea due to being buried in Shadows?
Shards of a Broken Sun [Megaten/Shugo Chara/Exalted]
- Thread starter Baughn
- Start date
- Crossover
- Location
- Laniakea
The reason we need to reach the boss room - or in my idea, convince Yui's Shadow to move the whole freaking room and not just bait the shadow itself out - is because that is where, I assume, the actual Yui is being held.
We need to reach that room to grab Yui.
Just baiting the Shadow by itself out won't accomplish much (it probably wouldn't even be that difficult, might not even need a dice roll, in Persona 5 the Shadows commonly leave their own boss rooms just to taunt YOU and then run back afterwards).
There's only a point to it if we can then follow up either by convincing the Shadow itself to go and bring the real Yui back out, or if we already have access to the boss room and are just trying to distract it so we can sneak Yui out (which, being "overlevelled", we shouldn't really need to do, we can just go through the Shadow directly).
I don't know what the difficulty level of convincing Yui's Shadow to rescue Yui itself would be, but something tells me it would be higher than just getting it to shift the boss room to the front of the domain.
We need to reach that room to grab Yui.
Just baiting the Shadow by itself out won't accomplish much (it probably wouldn't even be that difficult, might not even need a dice roll, in Persona 5 the Shadows commonly leave their own boss rooms just to taunt YOU and then run back afterwards).
There's only a point to it if we can then follow up either by convincing the Shadow itself to go and bring the real Yui back out, or if we already have access to the boss room and are just trying to distract it so we can sneak Yui out (which, being "overlevelled", we shouldn't really need to do, we can just go through the Shadow directly).
I don't know what the difficulty level of convincing Yui's Shadow to rescue Yui itself would be, but something tells me it would be higher than just getting it to shift the boss room to the front of the domain.
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[X] Tear the place open… deliberately
-[X] Stunt To Be Edited In Pending Further Clarification
We will likely end up with 2(3, counting Midori) liabilities with this vote, but Ami still has Illusion 2 and Hikaru will hopefully be arriving before the Arc is over, so it should be fine?
Exchanging success rate for DoS/DoF is something I think is fairly worth (and also drags the Investigation Team into this mess giving them more XP, something that will eventually be relevant)
-[X] Stunt To Be Edited In Pending Further Clarification
We will likely end up with 2(3, counting Midori) liabilities with this vote, but Ami still has Illusion 2 and Hikaru will hopefully be arriving before the Arc is over, so it should be fine?
Exchanging success rate for DoS/DoF is something I think is fairly worth (and also drags the Investigation Team into this mess giving them more XP, something that will eventually be relevant)
I wonder if Lightsmithing would be relevant in this scenario? (Though, finding scenarios where it isn't relevant seems more difficult, since I'm not exactly looking for lasers from this skill - we have Illusion for that)
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- Location
- Laniakea
I assume this means the Investigation Team has not yet actually met the Shadow Operatives and Mitsuru Kirijo and that they haven't yet been inducted into the Shadow Operatives.
That means Persona 4 Arena either hasn't happened yet (or only just barely started), as Naoto was already contracted by the JSDF to investigate Kirijo and the Shadow Operatives at the start of events in that game. If she'd been investigating the Kirijo Group, she would probably have found out that they used to manufacture Persona suppressors.
If the JSDF has already contracted her to do that job, she must have only just started her investigation.
Meaning we can't leverage her to get in touch with the Shadow Operatives. And she might even warn us away from Kirijo if she is/gets contracted to do that job.
There goes the previous plan of having Kirijo investigating Manticore for us (if what you mentioned actually happens in the medium term)?
- Location
- Laniakea
JP's would probably still know about the Shadow Operatives and Hotsuin could probably put us in touch, but that would require telling everything to Hotsuin. That might or might not be inevitable at this point, given how insistent Midori is on calling for help after extracting Yui. Unless she can be convinced by Naoto that she has the resources to provide all the help necessary, without further calling in JP's.
Would actually not be surprised if it turns out the JSDF are the ones running Manticore and in this quest, they are/will contract Naoto to investigate them in hopes of putting pressure on the Shadow Operatives to keep them from doing their own investigation into Manticore.
Would actually not be surprised if it turns out the JSDF are the ones running Manticore and in this quest, they are/will contract Naoto to investigate them in hopes of putting pressure on the Shadow Operatives to keep them from doing their own investigation into Manticore.
...right, this part:
was even if we do get out okay, with all the Scavengers intact. Midori has, quite reasonably, decided to prioritize support over secrecy after seeing what this place is like.
That's probably not the kind of thing Naoto has any interest in arguing, though.
[X] Tear the place open… deliberately
-[X] Utau: "...we should probably pick Hikaru up for backup first in case something goes wrong, and to ease his confusions about the weird stairs"
-[X] Midori: "If this place seems to run off associations as much as base physics and logic, shouldn't we try and use what we learned out Yui (and her fragments that we have) to guide our approach?"
Pending a better Stunt, this should work?
-[X] Utau: "...we should probably pick Hikaru up for backup first in case something goes wrong, and to ease his confusions about the weird stairs"
-[X] Midori: "If this place seems to run off associations as much as base physics and logic, shouldn't we try and use what we learned out Yui (and her fragments that we have) to guide our approach?"
Pending a better Stunt, this should work?
And if Naomi complains, we can hopefully point towards Yui and mention the potential Sniper based Bad End to say that she's out of her depth, then point to Naoto for potential allies?
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I wonder if we can do anything about the fog. Maybe physically blow it away with a big fan or telekinetic force or something.
The only outcome I see as likely where Midori (or someone else) doesn't immediately call JP's after this is if Naoto says she wants to investigate them first. If Naoto doesn't already know about JP's, she might want to come to her own conclusions about whether they're safe before bringing them in.
Maybe. I suspect she already knows Manticore has that kind of capability. There's a decent chance Naomi isn't even here, so she may not get a chance to object.
The only outcome I see as likely where Midori (or someone else) doesn't immediately call JP's after this is if Naoto says she wants to investigate them first. If Naoto doesn't already know about JP's, she might want to come to her own conclusions about whether they're safe before bringing them in.
I wonder if we can have Ami Illusion up the anti-fog glasses for the duration of this chapter? I doubt merely physical force is enough to get rid of the fog and all
- Location
- Laniakea
Utau kinda already tried that back in Chapter 2.8 to less-than-impressive effect. If it can be done, it evidently requires more psionic skill than Utau has. Probably Dreamwalking at 3+. Since if Ami didn't have any hints on what to do about it, she probably can't do it with her 2 dots in Dreamwalking.
Very good question.
And also why I suspect the JSDF might be behind Manticore.
If they contracted her in this quest, they might have provided an access route for Naoto to use (i.e. so she could investigate the Shadow Operatives from the cognitive world, the way Akechi used the Metaverse to interrogate people's Shadows for info in Persona 5).
I think Hikaru has enough Overgrowth to (temporarily) resolve this with unknown risk of collateral, but otherwise I guess we could give Ami the Key and hope it works?
Personally, I'm guessing either she's capable of entering on her own power now, or she asked her old buddy Marie for some help.
- Location
- Laniakea
@Baughn - Could you say whether this is feasible? If it is, some indication of the difficulty?
This is my proposed stunt, based on the following presumptions:
1. The interior of a 'shadow castle' is fluid and shifts. If you walk through the front door, walk out and back in again, the room you enter won't be the same as before. This is how the dungeons worked in Persona 4 and Naoto should have informed the party about it.
2. The room a person's Shadow inhabits, that they tend to detain their counterpart in, is typically the deepest section of the domain. Likely representative of how deeply someone represses their Shadow. This is also something Naoto should have informed the party about.
3. Amu knows the whole domain has a (not very sturdy) 'mind' that can be affected. Her default approach would have been to try crushing it or maybe hitting it with a heart beam, in order to purge the whole domain. This 'mind' is therefore linked to the composition of the domain and can be influenced to change the composition.
4. The Dumpty Key allows Utau to connect with people she has met - and also allows Amu to connect with shadows in this domain. She borrowed it earlier for that exact purpose, to salvage the fox shadow they ran into.
5. Utau can pull people's traumas to the surface, enough to turn Hearts' Eggs into X-Eggs. This is the main skill Easter exploited when she was working underneath them and she is well practised in it. Potentially practised enough to persuade an 'unsturdy' alien mind into doing the same.
[ ] Plan - Meikyuu Butterfly: Convince the 'shadow castle' to shift the room with the physical Yui right in front of the door. Joint action between Utau and Amu.
-[ ] Main Actor - Utau: The same skill, once used for the nefarious deed of blackening the hearts of children, perhaps now may serve a more noble purpose. Empowered by the Dumpty Key, hand-in-hand with Amu, reach out and connect to the 'mind' within the fog. Like a butterfly wandering a labyrinth, you feel your way towards the darkened depths of Yui's suffering and beckon to it, singing out your earnest desire to step across and share in her pain: "Open your shiny eyes in the silent night..."
-[ ] Sub Actor - Amu: Utau has not met Yui or felt the 'mind' of the 'shadow castle'. You have. Share your experiences with Utau to describe how you did it and what it felt like, in order to help her do the same. When Utau beckons, add your own voice to the choir of Utau's melody, adding your whispers of the respite you promise to bring: "I continue writing out the pages of my story, even while I'm blinded by the fog of destiny, I'll be breaking through the clouded skies toward tomorrow's distant light, high up in flight..."
-[ ] Open the door with Dumpty Key.
This is my proposed stunt, based on the following presumptions:
1. The interior of a 'shadow castle' is fluid and shifts. If you walk through the front door, walk out and back in again, the room you enter won't be the same as before. This is how the dungeons worked in Persona 4 and Naoto should have informed the party about it.
2. The room a person's Shadow inhabits, that they tend to detain their counterpart in, is typically the deepest section of the domain. Likely representative of how deeply someone represses their Shadow. This is also something Naoto should have informed the party about.
3. Amu knows the whole domain has a (not very sturdy) 'mind' that can be affected. Her default approach would have been to try crushing it or maybe hitting it with a heart beam, in order to purge the whole domain. This 'mind' is therefore linked to the composition of the domain and can be influenced to change the composition.
4. The Dumpty Key allows Utau to connect with people she has met - and also allows Amu to connect with shadows in this domain. She borrowed it earlier for that exact purpose, to salvage the fox shadow they ran into.
5. Utau can pull people's traumas to the surface, enough to turn Hearts' Eggs into X-Eggs. This is the main skill Easter exploited when she was working underneath them and she is well practised in it. Potentially practised enough to persuade an 'unsturdy' alien mind into doing the same.
[ ] Plan - Meikyuu Butterfly: Convince the 'shadow castle' to shift the room with the physical Yui right in front of the door. Joint action between Utau and Amu.
-[ ] Main Actor - Utau: The same skill, once used for the nefarious deed of blackening the hearts of children, perhaps now may serve a more noble purpose. Empowered by the Dumpty Key, hand-in-hand with Amu, reach out and connect to the 'mind' within the fog. Like a butterfly wandering a labyrinth, you feel your way towards the darkened depths of Yui's suffering and beckon to it, singing out your earnest desire to step across and share in her pain: "Open your shiny eyes in the silent night..."
-[ ] Sub Actor - Amu: Utau has not met Yui or felt the 'mind' of the 'shadow castle'. You have. Share your experiences with Utau to describe how you did it and what it felt like, in order to help her do the same. When Utau beckons, add your own voice to the choir of Utau's melody, adding your whispers of the respite you promise to bring: "I continue writing out the pages of my story, even while I'm blinded by the fog of destiny, I'll be breaking through the clouded skies toward tomorrow's distant light, high up in flight..."
-[ ] Open the door with Dumpty Key.
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Looking at our current situation, our party composition for upcoming situations is basically one of the most important votes we can make huh. (Imagine not having Utau around, we'd probably be stuck with the regular face punching option)
Also, @Baughn do Utau and Lulu know each other?
Putting on my OOC hat I was wondering if we could ask Utau to talk to Lulu instead for the infodump (after getting perms from Hotsuin), under the reasoning of Amu not needing any more worldview revelations for now after this arc and having too many familial matters that need to work through slowly.
Also, @Baughn do Utau and Lulu know each other?
Putting on my OOC hat I was wondering if we could ask Utau to talk to Lulu instead for the infodump (after getting perms from Hotsuin), under the reasoning of Amu not needing any more worldview revelations for now after this arc and having too many familial matters that need to work through slowly.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
With Lightsmithing in use, Utau counts as a valid assistant; that gets you another die. Note that Lightsmithing is something like active radar here; the shadow will see you coming, if that matters.
"Where is the center of the place" is autofail until you're far more capable, but isn't the same question as "how do I get to the center of this place"; the latter is more like following a trail. You can vote not to use WP, though in fact you'd need to vote to use WP, since the default plan doesn't have any real risk on failure; there wouldn't be any automatic WP use.
It seems feasible. Close enough to their experience that it isn't even hard to justify, which is always a bonus. You definitely won't expect the result, but I think that is the case for every plan, from what I've seen so far... though this surprise isn't necessarily a bad thing.
That said, what's feasible is for Utau to make that attempt, and for it to have an effect. The result may not be as intended.
Yes. Canonically, they worked together for a while. Utau—correctly—considered Lulu to be a naive child, who had zero clue about the evil place she'd somehow wandered into.
Or Teddy. Maybe even Yu!
= = =
I had a long day, and may well have forgotten someone. Feel free to re-ping if you're missing a response.
- Location
- Laniakea
Would that unintended effect be mainly from trying to open the door with the Dumpty Key?
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Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
The update default plan of Tearing down, or the Per + Investigation + Clairvoyance "plan" (which is fiat'd at 1 dice)?
As for stuff I probably should have ping'd: @Baughn Quine was asking about how Dreamwalking looks like to Ami, and I was asking about how a typical center of a shadow centre looks like to Naoto (commonalities between different castles if this question is ill-defined without that qualifier), in order to try and figure out conceptual bridges that might be able to get us there easier.
Your princess is in another castle?
(Finding Kana instead of Yui or something)
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Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
The update default plan is fiat'd as having no chance of leaving you in a worse position, apart from Amu getting tired. This isn't completely true—on a botch it can—but a botch is exceedingly unlikely. This is because the update default plan sums up as "Sniff your way towards the centre. Success = you get all the way there. (And success by multiple dice means it doesn't even tire them out.)
Anyhow, by default the kids will use WP to avoid any botch. So botches should be rare throughout the quest; they're normally converted to tiredness. Of course that does imply that, if a botch happens anyway, they'll be in a worse position to deal with it—but that is almost never a worthwhile reason to risk them.
All the non-default ideas so far have carried some more significant risk, although-
Someone mentioned a chance of TPK earlier. That is simply not a thing. We're discussing how to most safely tear down walls in someone's psyche to best help them; failure here is "Yui gets hurt", not "Amu doesn't make it out".
That is an option, I suppose. This castle is a nightmare; but is it Yui's nightmare? ...well, there's definitely some Yui here, so it does seem plausible.
You'll get a better perspective on that this weekend, in omake form. But I will say this: To Ami, walking the Dreamlands is just walking, except her overactive imagination directly impacts the environment. The darkness in a well is mysterious, and turns into the equally mysterious entrance to a dungeon, for example. Though as long as Ami's frame of mind is "explore these beautiful and mysterious dreams", and not "dig into the depths of a nightmare", she's pretty safe in general; she can easily dig herself out of any problems by just forcing her own preferred pathways to exist.
Which is not a thing Naoto can do, and why Naoto had serious trouble believing that Ami is actually human. Almost nothing in the cognitive world is genuinely inhuman, however.
= = =
Thinking back for a minute, someone commented that Ami looks like Alice. It got me thinking, and-
Those parallels are now intentional. I stand by my statement, however. Ami hasn't met Alice, Alice hasn't met Ami, and I doubt such a meeting would go well. Moreover, this isn't how anyone would draw Alice.
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[X] Tear the place open… deliberately
-[X] Try and pick up Hikaru first, best not to leave him staring at stairs for too long
-[X] Midori: Remind Amu and Ami that this might be easier if we factored in the knowledge of Yui that we currently have, as well as the fragments of Yui that are presumably still in the Key
Got it. Considering previously we passed on a 90% success option because of the risk of failure, I see no reason to backtrack on this decision now so...
-[X] Try and pick up Hikaru first, best not to leave him staring at stairs for too long
-[X] Midori: Remind Amu and Ami that this might be easier if we factored in the knowledge of Yui that we currently have, as well as the fragments of Yui that are presumably still in the Key
Got it. Considering previously we passed on a 90% success option because of the risk of failure, I see no reason to backtrack on this decision now so...
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
To be clear, this would take you back to the real world; you would then need to make your way back to Yui. It adds a lot of extra time, and Midori would certainly send Ami home if given the option.
Just making sure that's intentional. I have nothing against it. It'll be fun.
[X] Tear the place open… deliberately
-[X] Midori: Remind Amu and Ami that this might be easier if we factored in the knowledge of Yui that we currently have, as well as the fragments of Yui that are presumably still in the Key
Welp, I guess Hikaru is gonna be "sir-not-appearing-in-this-arc" then: Some incentive to train Dreamwalking after Integrity?
Have a not-quite-a-Stunt-Stunt I guess then, while we wait for the Omake for further customisation